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Saturday, December 12, 2015

One Year

One year ago, D officially brought home a certain little Stinker Pony. The funny thing about the whole search, is she only tried two horses for me in the process. Stinker and one other that I wasn't wild about, but he was near Stinker so I had her go check him out too. Needless to say Stinker was the winner.

It seems rather crazy, because I didn't get to actually see him until the beginning of March. Honestly who the hell buys a horse without seeing him and then doesn't see him for another three months? Apparently me. Please note that I don't recommend doing things this way. Luckily for me it all worked out.

From his sales ad

Stinker was also the last present my dog (aka my Chunky Monkey) bought me. In an attempt to make myself not feel so lame one year I bought shoes for my birthday and someone asked me about them, so I said Chunkers bought them for me. I swear my animals have normal names, but I also give them stupid nicknames that I use more than their real names. This continued as a joke, and I actually got some pretty pricy gifts. The one year my car got totaled right before Christmas and I got a car for Christmas. Last year a pony.

First picture D sent me post purchase

It has been a crazy year, and I think D had some interesting times in the three months that she had Stinker. She was very closed mouth about everything, but slowly some things have come out. Like how he liked to kick her leg when she asked for the canter transitions. WTF horse? He tried that once with me and kicked himself. He then got pissed and tried to buck, but that didn't work any better for him. I think that he couldn't maneuver himself as well since I am heavier than D.

In the last year, Stinker went from being essentially unstarted under saddle. He had extensive ground work, but not much riding. D had him going solid walk, trot, canter, and baby leg yields. He came down here we had about a month and half, then the lameness issues started. I kept insisting that something was wrong, but I didn't know what. The vet came, thought it was the hocks and they were injected. The vet came back, thought it was the stifles and they were blistered. The vet came back and decided that it was EPM. Through multiple rounds of treatment and the vet bills...Oh the vet bills... we finally got him back on track.

My first (possibly second) ride on him

At this point, he had lost a lot of weight and muscle (he will always be on the lean side, but this was too much). His lovely topline that D had built up was gone. And he still had some residual hitch in his git up. This eventually worked out and is gone, but that was more vet bills. Are we seeing $$$ yet, because all I saw was -$$$$. Finally, at the end of July I started riding him again. We putzed around and weren't making any real progress. I was only riding him for 10-15 minutes at a time so I couldn't justify paying for a full hour. Enter video lessons.

I started the video lessons with D in mid August. This finally got us on a positive track. I learned how to ignore his BS legs (this is still in progress at times), and he started to figure out that I wasn't going to kill him if I was on him. It has been a long and slow rode, but we are on an upward trend and I now have him back to where he was when D brought him down to me.

So that has been the year of the Stinker Pony. It has been an interesting ride with its ups and downs, and I can't wait to see what next year has in store for us. Hopefully, more interesting things than YAY my pony walked. But hey it is all about the little victories.